Next: Positional accuracy and spatial
Up: FEASIBILITY: THE WIDE FIELD
Previous: Ultraviolet sensitivity of the
Source variability can be studied with the WFC subject to the following
overall limitations:
- (i) Although each photon detected by the WFC is effectively time-tagged,
the instrument CDHS sets a minimum time resolution ms.
- (ii) Observations with any ROSAT instrument will typically
be interrupted every satellite orbit (see Chapter 7 ).
- (iii) The minimum time-scale for variability studies depends
on the source count rate. This is illustrated in
Figure 12.12 which shows the fractional intensity
change measurable (at 5 significance) as function of time
bin size for several different count rates.
- (iv) The instrument deadtime has been calibrated and typically results
in a correction of % to the on-time.
- (v) The spacecraft wobble (cf. § 4.2.2 ) does not
cause any significant variations in the WFC count rate.
Michael Arida
Tue Jun 11 16:18:41 EDT 1996